Understanding Your Dog"The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's." – Mark Twain, Letter to W D Howells, 4/2/1899

Posts tagged “dog story”

She’s pretty, everyone says so. Pretty for a human that is.

It wouldn’t matter to me if she weren’t, I’d love her just the same, but it is fun to be proud of her, especially when we go walking. The other dogs notice and they sometimes give me a hard time, but I just ignore them — I know they are jealous.

I have to admit that the blue bow around my neck is a bit of a problem. I wear it because it makes her happy. I love making her happy.

I have been known to chew on the occasional shoe — when I get bored, but I know that the pair she is wearing are special and I’m not allowed to go near them. I content myself with her slipper when the urge to chew something gets awful.

I don’t care all that much about the treat she is holding — she thinks I do, but really I like her attention — I like being with her and doing stuff — even girly human stuff.

The lady who runs the beauty parlour likes dogs, so I get to wait inside the shop, which is better than being tied up outside, or having to sit in the car. Don’t get me wrong, I like cars. They take me to interesting places.

The best part of the day is sleeping time. Not the ones during the day. I like them too, but the best one is the nighttime one. My mistress takes off all her beautiful clothes and gets under the covers, and we snuggle up together. My job is to help to keep her warm because she does not have any fur under all those clothes. Well, she has a bit of fur, but only a tiny bit and it is not enough to keep the rest of her warm.

I’m waiting for the right moment to take the treat. The longer I stretch it out, the more time I have with her full attention.

I hope you have an excellent mistress to spend your life with. I would loan you mine, but I need her all for myself.

“I get yelled at occasionally, but I’m never in any real danger.

I know all the local dogs and I know which ones to avoid; like Masher who lives two streets over.

He’s completely nuts!

It’s not his fault; he never gets walked and eventually the mental strain got to be too much.

They chain him up now because he is such a danger; which just made him worse. On the odd occasion that I head that way, I can hear him a long time before I can see him. He knows I’m coming, especially if the wind is blowing in that direction. He just barks and growls and I think that if he got loose, he would surely kill me. I feel sorry for him, but he scares the shit out of me; not that I show it; show weakness and you are dead meat.”

Until the end of the month, RUFUS will run free at Smashwords. Most of my books are half price during this period of time, but I decided to let RUFUS go for free. I want as many people as possible to enjoy this character, so enjoy.

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Polished floors and dog paws and you are bound to get a name like ‘Scamper’.

Names are not as important to dogs as they are to humans, but that does not mean that we don’t care about our name, we do, but if you change it, and we like you, we will still come when you call.

Scamper is sad most of the time, but he hides it very well.

If I come to visit, and he is not expecting me, I catch the sadness in his eyes — just for a moment. He quickly pulls himself together and puts on the face that he thinks we want to see.

Scamper underestimates me, just a bit.

I don’t expect my friends to be happy all the time and I’m pleased to hang out with them even when they are a bit down — assuming they want me to, of course.

Scamper is one of those dogs who likes to please everyone, which is an impossible task, but it doesn’t stop him from trying.

He likes almost everyone.

I don’t.

He wants to please everyone and I think that most people should bugger off, but that’s me.

I can be a grumpy bugger.

Scamper’s humans are nice enough, but they don’t understand what Scamper needs. They feed him and make sure that he has fresh water, but they rarely play with him or take him for a walk, “Scamper has a lovely big backyard to play in so he doesn’t need to go for a walk.”

Yes, he does you ignorant humans!

Scamper, of course, would never say anything to his humans.

He just sits there looking sad.

I’ve thought about intervening, but it is not my place — not my journey.

I wouldn’t want you to think that Scamper is unhappy all the time because he isn’t.

He a dog and dogs are famous for being in the moment and finding the fun wherever it may be.

The most important fact is that that’s not me in the illustration.

It’s very annoying. People think it is me and it really isn’t.

Those posters are all over the place and my friends keep winding me up about them.

“Nice poster Rufus.”

I’ve given up denying it, now I just give off a low growl.

The female is cute, but my mistress is much shorter and she would never get tangled up in a lead, and I wouldn’t tangle her up in the first place.

Don’t spread it around, but I did do that once when I was a pup. She fell over and bruised her knee. Amazingly, she didn’t shout at me. I was mortified. The last thing I would want to do was hurt her. I licked her knee and she said it made her feel better. I learned my lesson and I’ve been very careful so that it would not happen again.

I’m still trying to figure out what the poster is advertising, but I guess it doesn’t matter. They will take them all down in a week or two and replace them with something else.

My mistress likes the poster.

“If I grew a few inches, that could be me and you Rufus.”

No, it couldn’t.

My mistress has been working on a new novella.

I didn’t know what a novella was, but my mistress explained it to me as though I had asked, which I hadn’t, but I was going to. I like to know everything about her work, and not just that ‘it buys the dog biscuits, Rufus’. That is important, of course, but I like to know about her stories.

“This one is about a young woman who becomes a spy during the war.”

She didn’t say which war, but I did not want to interrupt her.

“She is very brave and manages to smuggle her secrets out from behind enemy lines. But that is not the best bit; it’s how she gets her secrets back home.”

I’d tell you what she said, but that would spoil it for you when you buy the book, but I can tell you that the book is called, ‘Keeper Of Secrets’. It’s very exciting and a bit spooky, just the way I like stories to be.

It was an unusually cold day for Spring and I was sitting quietly on the end of her bed as she read me the novella, cover to cover.

When she finished reading there was a short silence before she asked me, “Well, what do you think Rufus?”

My mistress always reads her stories to me and this was a long one. I looked her right in the eyes and gave her one loud bark. She knew what that meant.

“Wow, you like it that much?” I gave her another single bark just so she knew that I was serious.

“You are my ‘ideal reader’ and you never get it wrong. Thank you. An extra treat is coming your way.”

I didn’t need the extra treat, her praise was enough, but I wasn’t silly enough to say no.

This all started back when I was a pup, around the time I tripped her up.

She had been writing for a long time before I came into her life, but her books and stories were not selling well enough for her to give up her job.

My mistress was a Milliner. She made hats for all sorts of ladies to wear. According to her, she was very good at her job. She designed, as well as made, those funny little hats that ladies like to wear. She was always tired at the end of her working day, but she always made time to write. Sometimes she fell asleep at her typewriter.

“One time I woke up with the letter ’S’ imprinted into my forehead!”

Her favourite uncle left her some money. She was able to buy our cottage and there was a little bit left over to live on.

“If we are careful and don’t spend too much money we might have enough to last for a year. Someone had better start buying my books soon Rufus or I might have st share your dog biscuits.”

I was more than happy to share my biscuits with my mistress, but it didn’t come to that. She started writing early in the morning and late at night she would read me what she had written. I would give her one bark if I liked it and two if I didn’t. She caught on very quickly and together we wrote her first big hit.

From then on, she read me her work and if I didn’t like what she had written she would go away and write it again.

“You have an excellent ear for good writing Rufus.”

I even got a credit in her first book.

‘To Rufus, without whom this book would not have been written.’

The press all wanted to know who Rufus was, and for a long time she kept them guessing.

“A bit of mystery is good for my image, so don’t tell anyone, will you Rufus.”

I didn’t tell, but they worked it out eventually. My mistress didn’t mind.

Someone once said that everyone needs a hobby.

That someone was not a dog.

It’s the kind of thing that you would expect a human to say.

I don’t give hobbies very much thought. Personally I’m way too busy. Life is full and there’s always something new happening.

But, if we must talk about hobbies, I will tell you about Gabby and her mistress.

Gabby’s mistress had a part-time job working at the local bookstore. She didn’t need to work full-time because she had saved up her money, paid off her cottage, and lived frugally. At least that’s what Gabby called it. Personally, I thought that frugally was some kind of fruit salad, but apparently it means that she didn’t spend a lot of money, so she didn’t need a lot of money. She loved books so a bookstore makes sense. But it’s not her occupation that I’m here to talk about.

She had the strangest hobby.

Every day she read the five-day forecast in the newspaper and watched the TV news just to doublecheck. If strong winds were forecast she would make preparations.

As hard as it is to believe, her hobby was leaning into the wind.

Conditions had to be just right. Anything less than 10 miles an hour and it just didn’t work. Anything over 50 miles an hour and there was a risk that they might both get blown away.

They had several favourite spots where they would stand and lean into the wind.

The correct clothing was also important. Gabby didn’t need clothes but her mistress always wore a big yellow dress buttoned up at the neck. Button up boots were optional, but preferred.

Naturally, summer winds were best, but winter gave the maximum number of opportunities.

Gabby’s mistress preferred the town Square, but standing on the pier or the foreshore meant that people did not ask her what they were doing. People often stand and look out at the water, so no one thought she was strange.

I asked Gabby what she thought of their hobby and she gave the kind of answer that I expect from a dog. She said that she just likes being wherever her mistress is and she doesn’t care what she’s doing as long as she can be there. The bonus for Gabby is that the strong winds bring in interesting aromas from far away. Admittedly, most of those aromas concern fish and seaweed, but dogs don’t care. A good aroma is a good aroma, no matter where it comes from.

Gabby once said that she picked up the aroma of a roast dinner. The smell must have been coming from a fishing trawler just offshore. The captain was eating well that night.

Gabby has considered asking for a pair goggles that she has seen dogs wearing on motorcycles. The bugs really hurt when they get in your eyes, especially at that speed. In the short-term Gabby simply closes her eyes and lets her nose do all the work.

After a long day of leaning into the wind, Gabby and her mistress sit in front of the fire and drink tea with scones and jam and cream. Gabby isn’t really a big fan of tea, but she does like scones.